Jim Carroll wrote:-
" songs that in some way or other fitted the documented and long tested description of folk songs and weren't Urban Spaceman or September Song - in fact - what it said on the tin."

Serendipity....I am going to a folk club evening of Wassailing Songs tonight and Tina and I have been practicing the songs that we will contribute. Aren't there some wonderful songs in this category? It was good for me to be singing something different because in the last few weeks, all I have wanted to sing has been the Charlotte Higgins version of Lord Bateman which I am totally mesmerised by.
Thinking of tonight made me think of Lea Nicholson singing Here We Come a-Wassailing. We used to run a club with him in the 1960s and continued to book him after that for as long as he was involved in the the folk scene. I went to find an album of his to play. I listened to all of it. It's great, a lovely variety of stuff but I particularly enjoyed Here We Come A-Wassailing (Roud 209), The False Knight on the Road (Roud 20), Greenland Bound (Roud 970) and I'm The Urban Spaceman (No Roud Number). They are all great songs and listening to the album brought back all the joy of listening to Lea live.
Then I came back to the computer and read Jim's mention of September Song which sent me back to the record shelves to find one of the six LPs from my mother's record collection that I kept after she died (3 by Frank Sinatra, 3 by Jimmy Shand), I played September Song. What a beautifully constructed, meaningful song that is! Surely it is one of the best pop songs of the 20th century?
Speaking for myself, I would like to listen to well-performed versions of any of the songs mentioned in my post in a folk club or elsewhere... but I am probably a very bad person.